Note:Ed Burroughs enrolled sons Hulbert
and Jack at the Urban Military Academy in Los Angeles in the fall of 1923In the Fall of 1924 Hulbert moved to Los
Angeles High School and Jack to John Burroughs Junior High.

But during their time at Urban, Ed was requested
to write an articlefor the school newspaper -- The Urbanite.He wrote a piece for the April 4, 1924
issue that he entitled"Out of Time's Abyss."

He obviously borrowed the title from Part
3 of the 1918 Blue Book pulp version ofthe novel that would become "The
Land That Time Forgot"and would be published by McClurg in June
1924.

While I consider it both a privilege and an honor to contribute to
The Urbanite, I have only a rather sketchy idea as to the sort of article
that will interest you.

Although one is supposed after eighty or ninety years to have forgotten
what boys like, I still have a well defined recollection of some of the
things that were numbered among my pet aversions in my prehistoric boyhood.
One of them was sermons. Therefore we will avoid preaching and promise
that there will be no moral at the close of this contribution.

I think you might be interested in the story of a hoax to which I was
a party while I was a cadet at the Michigan Military Academy at Orchard
Lake, Michigan, some time after the fall of Rome. It is a long story and
I must tell it briefly, as I am limited by your editorial staff to a certain
amount of space, and being an author and therefore naturally living in
mortal terror of all editors, I shall make every effort not to incur their
wrath.

Several years after the battle of Waterloo I was a cadet Second Lieutenant
and a man by the name of Campbell was Cadet First Lieutenant and Quartermaster.
We had quarreled and were not on speaking terms. It occurred to one of
us that we might make capital of our well known dislike for one another
and from the acorn of this idea sprang the sturdy joke that eventually
found its way into Associated Press dispatches.

One evening when I was O.D. we had a pre-arranged altercation in front
of the battalion after it had formed for mess. Heated words were followed
by blows. We had planned that some of our loyal friends would separate
us, but unfortunately for us they were more interested in watching the
scrap than in stopping it. Someone finally interfered, much to our relief
and later that evening Campbell chose a second, who waited upon me with
a request for satisfaction. I also chose a second and being the challenged
party, selected the weapons, which were to be Springfield rifles at twenty
paces. Campbell's second was senior Captain, a solid, substantial sort
of chap of a serious turn of mind and was also endowed with a little intelligence,
with the result that he positively refused to have anything to do with

the matter, and threatened to report the whale thing to the Commandant
immediately if we did not drop it. It was therefore, necessary to let him
in on the joke, when he joined in with us. The duel was to take place the
following Saturday on the ice on Cass Lake, some three or four miles from
the school and on limits. During the intervening days excitement ran to
a tremendous height and why the authorities heard no inkling of it I have
never been able to guess, except that the entire corps of cadets was so
anxious to see blood shed that none of them wanted to let the powers-that-be
have an opportunity to prevent the meeting.

All sorts of rumors were rife. One of my friends brought me word that
the Campbell contingent was planning to murder me during the night, and
although it was strictly against all rules this boy insisted on sleeping
in my room with me to protect me. It was only when I assured him that I
was a light sleeper and would keep a loaded revolver handy that he consented
to return to his own quarters.

There was always a yawning abyss between the plebes and old boys at
Orchard Lake, and in this as in other cases the poor downtrodden plebe
was booked to get the worst of it, in that he was notified that no plebes
were to be permitted to witness the slaughter. But, when I approached the
field of honor on that bleak Michigan winter morning the bare trees all
around the shore of the lake were decorated with plebes who had sneaked
off limits ahead of us and gained points of vantage at the ringside. My
second, adherents and myself were first upon the ground and there we waited,
shivering in the cold, for Campbell. I knew that he would come if it were
mortally possible, but my friends, all of whom believed devoutly in the
reality of the affair, attributed his absence to cowardice. They were torn,
however, by conflicting emotions -- by relief that my life was not to be
jeopardized, and by disappointment that they were about to miss a perfectly
good thrill.

Campbell never came, but an emissary from the Commandant did, and he
came hotfoot, bearing with him orders for me to report to the Commandant
at once.

Somehow, all humor evaporated from my joke on the spot. I knew that
I would be reduced to the ranks and possibly dismissed from the Academy.
It was a long, cold walk back to school. I would much sooner have faced
Campbell with Springfields at twenty paces than to have faced the Commandant,
and when I entered his office and saw his face I realized that my judgment
was still perfectly good. He was then Lieutenant Frederick S. Strong
of the 4th Artillery, a West Pointer, and at the present time a Brigadier
General in the regular army. At first he would not believe that we were
only attempting a practical joke, but when I showed him the cartridges
from which we had extracted the bullets, and a handkerchief stained with
red ink which I had tucked in he breast of my blouse, and had explained
that it was to have been used after the first shot as proof positive that
I had been wounded just prior to the second shot, which was to have killed
Campbell, he was the most relieved individual that I have ever seen.

So great, in fact, was the relief of all the authorities at the school
that neither Campbell nor I lost our chevrons, and got off with only a
reprimand.

I am afraid that I have run very much over my two hundred word assignment,
and am fearful of what Editor-in-Chief French may do to me unless Major
Quinn details Montgomery VI and VII as my personal bodyguard when I visit
the Academy.